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This started off as a thread reply, but it became so blatantly off-topic that I moved it here and it's now a sort of blog post. I've posted a lot about the end of my MMT treatment, but not a whole lot about what my life was like when I first got involved with treatment. I was a multi-drug user. When I was young and my body could hack it, I did the speed ball thing a LOT. The only drug I hated was crystal meth. I did one hefty IV dose and felt like I was walking upon a loud, toxic wasteland...it was a gorgeous beach on the east Coast but it felt like Hell. Heroin was my big #1... My chemical best friend. Most if the other drugs I used were done to compliment heroin.
It took me about a year, maybe 18 months, on methadone to slowly change my lifestyle and kick the other drugs to the curb. In that time I tried to get the drug cravings out of my system by doing all the drugs I could find. Brilliant addict logic. At one point I was taking a methadone/benzo cocktail so large and absurd I'm still kinda amazed I didn't kill myself in the process. I was taking more pills than I could count through the day...and yet somehow it was never enough. The typical blitzed-out benzo addict line," I don't even feel it!..hand me my pills". And then the worst point during this time of my life was spent addicted to a combination of crack, methadone and any pill I could get. That time on crack ( maybe 6 months) took me further down the rabbit hole than all of my other years on drugs combined. Quitting was actually easy once I decided to drop the crack. I didn't even enjoy the drug unless I mixed it heavily with downers. It was a social drug for me... Both my sister and my best friend loved it and it was a tool I used to nail down time with them.

At one point I was found so incoherent at a Circle K store that some EMTs were smart enough to take me into custody for my own protection. I have no memory of getting to the facility. I must have been in a benzo and crack black--out. I was put into a 2 week psych ward due to my freaky behavior and once I left I was 98% convinced the crack had to go or I'd end up in a body bag.
Now this is going to lead into the real story behind this post...I need to write it down in the hopes this shit won't keep haunting me. I had a very disturbing dream last night. A deceased friend *Kristi* came to me..vivid..very wakeful dreaming stuff. I could smell her when I woke up. I've been thinking about her a lot. Too much maybe.

After I was released from the psych ward, I did crack 2 more times with my then best friend... Once on my birthday when she showed up and I was conveniently alone. Up until this time we spent 2 years together almost non-stop. We were almost like one hybrid addict mutant. But using with her had lost it's magic. LkIt felt flat, I felt guilty and when she offered to get more I declined without hesitation. The next time she came to my door she's stood there begging to come in "just one last time". She was so high... I could see it all over her. I has this glass door... Top to bottom glass door. I can still see her face, tears in her eyes, feeling abandoned, telling me she needed me, and me refusing to open the door. That was the last time I saw her.Crack was our silly, childish "bonding drug". I hated it...and my giving up crack killed our bond. I know drug friendships are bad news and that in order to stay clean we're told to make a clean break. Soon after this experience I moved out if state. I tried looking her online but never could find any mention of her. Two weeks ago I did another personal search, expanding the search to include her family members. I stood there numb, looking at her obituary for 39 minutes before I started to cry. She had been dead the whole time...the date of her death was 2 weeks after I moved out if state, I never said goodbye. I never told her, despite all the ugly drug stuff, I did and always would love her. I just ran away.

But now she's gone and I'm still here. Why? I've lost half a dozen close friends to over-dose or drug related accidents....yet this girl's face haunts me like no other. I hope she didn't die alone, sad or scared...thinking nobody cared enough to come find her. The guilt of surviving addiction while those around me have died so many times is a tough nut to crack for me. Despite our obvious dysfunction... I still miss her. I miss that I never got that chance to look back over those crazy years, laughing at all the messed up shit we did together with the clarity brought by sobriety and serenity. I miss the idea of that missed shared moment.

When I blew her off I was in self-protection mode. I should have handled it better. I knew she was bi-polar. I knew she had serious self destructive tendencies. She wanted me to keep getting high, wanted to stay inseparably close and I can imagine my brush off left her feeling terrible. Did it leave her feeling so terrible she killed herself? Did she overdose on something? I'll never know. The obituary does not list cause of death. But I regret not at least writing her a letter.. Or giving her a hug and telling her to consider get clean for the sake of her little beautiful little boy. Now that beautiful "little boy" is a teen ager.. I saw him on Facebook and he is the spitting image of his mother. He was always with his grandma when we were out getting high.. And it looks like she's raised him well. I wish I could change things, give him his mother back...give her back the chance to raise her son. 34 years old.. So young. But I'm just another lucky addict who beat the odds.... Nothing special to offer this sad story. No super powers to fix the lives this addiction steals, squanders and forgets about. But I won't forget you.
I love you Kristi. I'm sorry.

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Hey Jessa! I felt like that when i was discharged from the local Mental Hospital after ending up there thanks to my DR over prescribing me Atvan. I used to go there all the time visiting the closest friend i made a few times week, she was Bi-polar as well and had been cut down load's of times after hanging her self in the bathroom. Dead and taken to general Hospital and on life support.

Only to get back and do it again. I got her out and about with me and she began to live and laugh and it was in a village and i always took her out to dinner in the cafe' there. She alway's said 'I never seen the point in living anymore until i met you now i laugh, i dance, i can see hope after many year's.

She'd been in there 8 year's when i got there and the Hospital staff asked me to stay on as a staff member becuase i got through to many people they'd given up on. The last time i saw her and said 'see you Thursday'. It was Monday at this time) i woke up Thursday with the Flu from hell so i couldn't visit for 3 week's. The day i felt up to going the phone rang as i was getting ready.......she was dead.

I blamed myself for ages for not being there as it would never have happened, even the staff said so. I carried it for year's until i realized, she tried for year's and never succeeded? If she wa mean't to go before that day, no matter what, she'd be dead.

But that day? It was just her time, the Universe was in control, not me. Now i'm happy that for the time we met each other i made her HAPPY. Its not our fault no matter what love we CAN'T control anyone's fate , look at where a lot of us are now? Would WE want to be in the position we're in? NO. You played your part in he life, we're not responsible in anyway for their death xxx:vibes:

Hey Jessa! I felt like that when i was discharged from the local Mental Hospital after ending up there thanks to my DR over prescribing me Atvan. I used to go there all the time visiting the closest friend i made a few times week, she was Bi-polar as well and had been cut down load's of times after hanging her self in the bathroom. Dead and taken to general Hospital and on life support.

Only to get back and do it again. I got her out and about with me and she began to live and laugh and it was in a village and i always took her out to dinner in the cafe' there. She alway's said 'I never seen the point in living anymore until i met you now i laugh, i dance, i can see hope after many year's.

She'd been in there 8 year's when i got there and the Hospital staff asked me to stay on as a staff member becuase i got through to many people they'd given up on. The last time i saw her and said 'see you Thursday'. It was Monday at this time) i woke up Thursday with the Flu from hell so i couldn't visit for 3 week's. The day i felt up to going the phone rang as i was getting ready.......she was dead.

I blamed myself for ages for not being there as it would never have happened, even the staff said so. I carried it for year's until i realized, she tried for year's and never succeeded? If she wa mean't to go before that day, no matter what, she'd be dead.

But that day? It was just her time, the Universe was in control, not me. Now i'm happy that for the time we met each other i made her HAPPY. Its not our fault no matter what love we CAN'T control anyone's fate , look at where a lot of us are now? Would WE want to be in the position we're in? NO. You played your part in he life, we're not responsible in anyway for their death xxx:vibes:

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Thanks very much for sharing your story. I had actually tried, and thought I had succeeded, in deleting this post. It's true, I carry some weight in my heart for all the friends I've lost to drugs snd alcohol. But this blog post was written in the middle of the night, directly after a brutal nightmare; And while my emotions were heightened my ability to see the situation objectively had been blurred considerably. I KNoW I am not at fault for her death. My brain seems more active since getting off methadone....I'm dreaming for the first time in years and my emotions feel so huge, as if they're swallowing me whole. I find my blog to be a tad self-indulgent and over- the-top. It kinda makes me cringe to read it. But perhaps deleting it would be cowardly. The extreme emotions expressed in the blog are now nothing more than a shadow of what I felt that night. I was a crying, hysterical mess! And I let it out for the entire forum to see/read. I'm glad I've had such empathetic readers...it's nice to know how much guilt can gut you like a fish if you allow it to. I feel good today, proud to be alive and proud if the choices that allowed me to have this life